When youthful spring around us breathes, Moore. XXVII. HUMAN FRAILTY. "THERE is scarce a state of life, or stage in it, which does not produce changes and revolutions in the mind of man. Our schemes of thought in infancy are lost in those of youth, these too take a different turn in manhood, until old age often leads us back into our former infancy. A new title, or an unexpected success throws us out of ourselves, and in a manner destroys our identity. A cloudy day, or a little sun-shine, have as great an influence on many constitutions, as the most real blessing or misfortune. A dream varies our being, and changes our condition while it lasts; and every passion, not to mention health and sickness, and the greater alteration in body and mind, makes us appear almost different creatures. If a man is so distinguished among other beings by this infirmity, what can we think of such as make themselves remarkable for it even among their own species? It is a very trifling character to be one of the most variable kind, especially if we consider that He who is the great standard of perfection has in him no shadow of change, but Is the same yesterday, to day, and for ever.'"-Addison. The bow well bent, and smart the spring, But passion rudely snaps the string, And it revives again. Some foe to his upright intent Finds out his weaker part; Virtue engages his assent, But pleasure wins his heart. THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 'Tis here the folly of the wise, Through all his art we view; And while his tongue the charge denies, Bound on a voyage of awful length, But oars alone can ne'er prevail To reach the distant coast; The breath of heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost. 349 CowPER. XXVIII. THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. "WALK in the fields in one of the mornings of May, and if you carry with you a mind unpolluted with harm, watch how it is impressed. You are delighted with the beauty of colours; are not those colours beautiful? You breathe vegetable fragrance; is not that fragrance grateful? You see the sun rising from behind a mountain, and the heavens painted with light; is not that renewal of the light of the morning sublime? You reject all obvious reasons, and say that these things are beautiful and sublime because the accidents of life have made them so ;-I say they are beautiful and sublime, BECAUSE GOD HAS MADE THEM SO! that it is the original indelible character imFressed upon them by Him, who has opened these sources of simple pleasure, to calm, perhaps, the perturbations of sense, and to make us love that joy which is purchased without giving pain to another man's I eart, and without entailing reproach upon our own."-Sidney Smith's Moral Philosophy. THE Spirit of Beauty unfurls her light, Morn. Noon. Delight. X I know her track through the balmy air, At morn I know where she rested at night, At noon she hies to a cool retreat, Where bowering elms over waters meet; She dimples the waves, where the green leaves dip, When her tremulous bosom would hide, in vain, At eve she hangs o'er the western sky She hovers around us at twilight hour, RUFUS DAWES. XXIX. MORAL BEAUTY. "I HAVE said a great deal about prospect and landscape; I will mention an action or two, which appear to me to convey as distinct a feeling of the beautiful as any landscape whatever. A London merchant, who, I believe, is still alive, while he was staying in the country with a friend, happened to mention that he intended the next year to buy a ticket in the lottery; his friend desired he would buy one for him at the same time, which of course was very willingly agreed to. The conversation dropped, the ticket never arrived, and the whole affair was entirely forgotten, when the country gentleman received information that the ticket purchased for him by his friend had come up to a prize of £20,000. Upon his arrival in London he inquired of his friend where he had put the ticket, and why he had not informed him that it was purchased. 'I bought them both ne same day, mine and your ticket, and I flung them both into a drawer of my bureau, and I never thought of them afterwards.' But how do you distinguish one ticket from the other? and why am I the holder of the fortunate ticket more than you?' 'Why, at the time I put them into the drawer, I put a little mark in ink upon the ticket which I resolved should be yours, and upon reopening the drawer I found that the one so marked was the fortunate ticket." Now this action appears to me perfectly beautiful; it is le beau ideal in morals, and gives that calm yet deep emotion of pleasure which every one so easily receives from the beauty of the exterior world.”— Sidney Smith's Moral Philosophy. Conjugate these verbs, and distinguish between trans, and intrans. : "Tis not alone in the flush of morn, In the cowslip-bell, or the blossom thorn, Oh no, it lives, and breathes, and lies It dwells with the one whose pitying eye That light should shine on the deeds it wrought. It dwells in the heart that nought inspires Sweet Spirit of Beauty! my dreams are thine ; 1. This word is sometimes spelt ought, which do you prefer? 2. The ellipsis in this line? RUFUS DAWES. 3. What part of speech is but here? 4. This word is sometimes spelt sheu which do you prefer? XXX. VIRTUE FINALLY TRIUMPHANT. "THE Continuance of our existence, in the ages that follow the few years of our earthly life, is not to be regarded only in relation to those ages. Even in these few years which we spend on earth, comparatively insignificant as they may seem, when we think at the same time of immortality, it is, to him who truly looks forward to the immortality as that for which human life is only a preparation, the chief source of delight, or of comfort, in occasional afflictions. If this life were indeed all, the sight of a single victim of oppression would be to us the most painful of all objects, except the sight of the oppressor himself; and though we might see sufficient proofs of goodness, to love Him by whom we were made, the goodness would, at the same time, appear to us too capricious in many instances, to allow us to rest on it with the confidence which it is now so delightful to us to feel, when we think of Him in whom we confide. In the sure prospect of futurity, we see that unalterable relation, with which God and virtue are for ever connected,-the victim of oppression, who is the sufferer and scarcely the sufferer of a few moments here, is the rejoicer of endless ages; and all those little evils which otherwise would be so great to us, seem scarcely worthy even of our regret. We feel that it would be almost as absurd, or even more absurd, to lament over them and repine, as it would be to lament, if we were admitted to the most magnificent spectacle which human eyes had ever beheld, that some few of the crowd through which we passed had slightly pressed against us, on our entrance."-Brown's Lectures. ALL now is vanished. Virtue sole survives |